ART & ARTISTS: Ronald Searle

Wednesday, 21 September 2022

Ronald Searle - part 2

The son of a railwayman, Ronald Searle was born in Cambridge on 3 March 1920, and educated in the town at the Boys' Central School. He started work as a solicitor's clerk, and then joined the hire purchase department of the co-operative Society, studying in the evenings and later full-time at the Cambridge Daily News from the age of fifteen.

Enlisting in the Royal Engineers at the outbreak of the Second World War, he spent time in Kirkcudbright, where he encountered evacuees from St. Trinian's, a progressive girls' school situated in Edinburgh. This resulted in his first cartoon for Lilliput, published in October 1941, and later developed into one of his most famous creations, through a series of books and their cinematic spin-offs. Remarkably, he survived the horrific experiences of the Changi Camp, Singapore as a Japanese prisoner-of-war and managed to produce a visual record of life in a prison camp.

On his return to England in 1945, he exhibited the surviving pictures at the Cambridge School of Art, and published Forty Drawings. The exhibition and volume together established his reputation as one of Britain's most powerful draughtsmen, and led to several opportunities to record the atmosphere of post-war Europe. He contributed to Punch and these drawings crystallised in, The Female Approach (1949). Throughout the fifties, he produced a large variety of illustrations, which together seemed present a guide to life in Britain in the 1950's.

Such was his success that his rejection of family and country in a move to Paris in 1961 came as a great surprise. However, it offered a fresh start, resulting in several solo shows, including a major exhibitions at the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, the Berlin-Dahlem Museum and the Wilhelm-Busch-Museum, Hanover. He also reached a new audience with his contributions to film and television, most notably The Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965).

Note: Searle did so many works that I want to post here, that I will post them in two separate series: 1940-1960, and at a later date: 1961-2007.

For a more detailed biography, and for earlier works, see part 1 also.

This is part 2 of a 13-part series on the works of Ronald Searle, dated 1940-1960:

St Trinian's is a comic strip and cartoon series, created and drawn by Searle between 1946 and 1952. The cartoons all centre on a boarding school for girls, where the teachers are sadists and the girls are juvenile delinquents. The series was Searle's most famous work and inspired a popular series of comedy films:

1941 'Owing to the international situation the match with St. Trinian’s has been postponed'
Lilliput magazine October 1941
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
© The Ronald Searle Cultural Trust

1948 'Fair play, St. Trinian's - use a clean needle !'

1948 "My God - she's put water with it again."

1948 Adults Only - Sin at Dawn
Lilliput magazine June 1948

1949 "Smashing - pass the bat's blood."
Liiliput magazine October 1949

1949 Lilliput magazine
Issue No.150 December 1949

1950 "Caught the little beast trying to warn Herbert Morrison."
Lilliput magazine November 1950

1950 "Could you tell me the time, please"
Lilliput magazine August 1950

c1950 "But I only broke her leg, Miss."

c1950 "Come along, prefects. Playtime over."

c1950 "Don't be greedy, Cynthia, give your sister some."

c1950 "Hand up the girl who burnt down the East Wing last night."

c1950 "Hard cheese, Maisie - your horse wasn't placed."

c1950 "If you ask me, Cyril, it is not the behaviour of a sahib."

c1950 "Prudence is new to St. Trinian's, I want you to take care of her, girls."

c1950 Christmas
"First of all we'll list the people who'll pay us to go away."

c1950 Her plans for the future were taking shape already

c1950 The roseate end of every home-girl's dream

c1950 Vatican City "It's WINE!"

1951 "Elspeth! - Put that back at ONCE."
sepia pen and ink with watercolour washes and scratching out 33.5 x 23 cm

1951 "Eunice! How many times must I tell you - take the band off first!"
Lilliput April 1951

1951 "Who's there?"
Lilliput magazine July-August 1951

n.d. "Who's there?"

1951 Back To The Slaughterhouse:

Front Cover

Frontispiece

Title Page

"And this is Rachel - our head girl."

"And this is Rachel - our head girl."
original artwork (for Lilliput magazine)

'… and a pair of knuckledusters, and some scent, and a hammer…'
original artwork

"… and this, children, is where they work for peace"
original artwork
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronald Searle Cultural Trust

"But, Miss Merryweather, you said we could bring our pets back with us…"

"But, Miss Merryweather, you said we could bring our pets back with us"
original artwork
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronald Searle Cultural Trust